Global corporations claim their new technologies will benefit us all, but they could threaten us, particularly small-scale food producers and consumers. Even before COVID-19, the arrival of big data, synthetic biology, robotics and other tech were being hailed as the answers to hunger, climate change and even infectious disease. In the summer of 2020, ETC Group began convening conversations with, and among, civil society organisations, social movement allies and communities with whom we work. “Which…

Conventional structures of business ownership have been shown to be completely incompatible with the needs of the planet and society. Short term profit motivated thinking has cost us dearly and the implications of veracious capitalism and the consumerist society that it has created are now coming home to roost. Urgent action is required and business needs to be a big part of this – they can’t just wait for customers to demand action from them.…

This session will focus on the US Food Sovereignty Movement (USFSA) and the process of organizing for food sovereignty in the “Belly of the Beast”. We will think together about how we can work across boundaries, amongst different constituencies to mobilize for food sovereignty in contexts, like the US and the UK, from where industrial and corporate agriculture is consolidated and projected onto the world. This session is organized in the spirit of mutual learning…

In this panel we will hear directly from three countries – Honduras, Colombia and Paraguay – which have rich experiences of peasant struggle but also have very high levels of criminalization against peasants, indigenous, and afrodescendent peoples and other defenders of human rights. Each panelist, which represents a different member organization of the Latin American Coordination of Rural Organizations (Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo – CLOC-Vía Campesina), the Latin American expression of La Via…

Fires are now a staple of summer in California, which is also during one of the most important growing cycles. As California endures this new climate pattern farmers are facing the reality of burnt land, seedlings, and precious harvest lost. What can be done? What is being done? What might others learn? Come hear the diverse perspectives on how leaders in California are continuing to embody resilience in the face of these acute challenges.

Only a decade ago it was widely thought that tropical forests and intact natural environments threatened humans by harbouring the viruses and pathogens that lead to new diseases in humans like Ebola, HIV and dengue. Today, a number of researchers think it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases like COVID-19 to arise. These viruses have profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike…

The foundation of any agroecological food system is secure land title, especially for farmers and pastoralists displaced from ancestral lands and vulnerable to land grabs. This session will explore land rights and access to land for agroecological producers. We will explore indigenous and peasant experiences, especially from the perspective of youth interested in pursuing a farming livelihood. The session will feature a moderated conversation between La Via Campesina and the International Indian Treaty Council, two…

Agriculture and the food system accounts for nearly one third of all greenhouse gases, but the vast majority of this is from the energy intensive production and distribution of a few internationally traded commodities. Whereas farmers operating agro-ecological systems around the world produce food and resources for their communities while reducing cO2 emissions from agriculture and sequestering carbon at the same time.

Many governments now accept the need for net zero but there is…

Do we even have a right to be hopeful? With political and ecological fires raging all around, is it irresponsible to imagine a future world radically better than our own? A world of healed ecosystems? Of food sovereignty and equal access to land? A world where governments fear the people instead of the other way around?

These are questions that Naomi Klein and Nnimmo Bassey wrestled with when they conceived of a sequel to last year's…